Civic Links
Asynchronous Session
Featured Modelling Public Decisions: Fundamental Rights as Conditioning Political Interaction View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Simon Ruiz-Martinez
Modern political theory defined a state as a sort of juridical state of affairs. This crucial idea has been left out in contemporary legal theory given the complexity of constitutional systems. This ends up creating a gap between what people do (sociology of law, as Ferrajoli would term it) and what the law should assure (from a dogmatic perspective). This gap presents dire problems not only regarding the validity of the constitutional system, but effective fundamental rights-preserving policies. This study develops a formal model that can be used to evaluate policies against the background of the fundamental rights that condition the interactions of relevant agents in the public sphere: a community that may or may not find fundamental rights as binding, and an administrative territorial agent that executes policies in the territory. The output of the model should help the administrative agent to select the most reasonable strategy, given a contextualized notion of fundamental rights, that is, one that is coherent with the communitarian practices (and therefore, the motivations and interests of the people that belong to them).
The Traces of Francoism - Family Narratives of a Dictatorship in Three Generations View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Maria Lojo
On July 18 1936, Franco staged a coup in Spain, initiating a Civil War. As a result, a dictatorship is established, during almost fourty years. It is not until the death of the dictator in 1975 that a process of democratic transition begins. Different generations have passed through these different periods, constructing particular and changing ways of understanding the world and themselves. The Civil War, and the dictatorship that it originated, can be considered points of reference in the recent history in Spain, for the mark they left on society through violence and repression. In this project we present the narratives, the set of meanings about Francoism, of different generations that are part of the same family. In-depth interviews were carried out with each of the generations of the same family: the generation that lived the Franco regime, the generation that participated in the democratic transition and the generation born in democracy. We understand the family as a scenario of transmission, exchange and appropriation of these narratives, especially in contexts of political violence. By applying thematic analysis and analysis of positions and voices, we can describe the narratives that each generation has, their transformations and continuities, and the forms of acquisition. In this way, we are able to trace the representation and communication of the meanings of the event of the dictatorship in the social dynamics of the family group.
To Judge and Be a Judge at the National Court of Asylum : Experiences and Background of the Court Assessors View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Jean Luc Richard
In France, the National Court of Asylum (CNDA) is the jurisdiction competent to make decisions relating to appeals made by asylum-seekers, including those whose initial demand has been rejected by the French Office for the Protection of Refugees and Stateless Persons (OFPRA). It is a specialist administrative court of last resort under the control of its judge of cassation (the Council of State) which rules on appeals brought against the decisions made by OFPRA, an organization attached to the Ministry of the Interior. As an administrative court, the CNDA is called on, like all French administrative jurisdictions, to handle multiple cases falling within its sphere of competence while simultaneously reconciling the exercise of these tasks with the delicate human character of cases relating to applications for international protection. Who are the individuals designated or proposed by the Council of State and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), respectively, as being the most suitable to act in this role and assume these functions? What are the differences in the profiles of the two types of Court assessor? We include 28 interviews and statistical data. Establishing the truth or plausibility of the hardships that the applicants claim to have experienced is the most delicate of the tasks facing these judges. It is, furthermore, a task that contributes to the specificity and the very particular nature of such cases.
Zelensky’s Warm War: The Effect of Ukrainian President’s Communal Personality Traits on Empathy and Pro-Social Behavior towards the Ukrainians View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Meital Balmas
The war between Russia and Ukraine is not only over territory or security but also over public opinion. Research has shown that national leaders can leverage their personality – in a general, positive sense – to arouse, in people living beyond their countries’ borders, emotions of empathy or pro-social reactions towards their countries’ citizens. We focus on the personality of Ukrainian President Zelensky and examine which of his personality traits can promote empathy and pro-social behavior towards Ukrainians. In two experimental studies, conducted in Israel and in the U.S., we found that exposure to a news article that highlights Zelensky’s communal traits (warmth or morality), as compared to his agentic traits (competence or determination), led to (a) increased levels of empathy towards Ukrainian citizens, (b) willingness to help them, and (c) an actual monetary donation for their benefit. We end by discussing the theoretical and practical implications of the findings.
Treaty Obligations and Political Commitments: Security, Nuclear Disarmament, and the Non-proliferation of Nuclear Weapons View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Brian Muzas
The Tenth Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (commonly called the NPT RevCon) failed to produce a consensus document. Among the points of contention that doomed the outcome document, this paper focuses on four: the meaning of a "moratorium" on fissile material, disagreement on whether security is necessary for disarmament or nuclear disarmament is necessary for security, legal obligations vs. political commitments, and disarmament vs. arms reduction. By drawing on history, international relations theory, and practical considerations related to treaty verification, this paper argues that "moratorium" is a meaningful and actionable term, that arms reduction must precede disarmament, and, crucially, that both sides of the "security first" and "disarmament first" debate are correct in their convictions but at different times in the disarmament process because there is an inflection point when "disarmament first" must give way to "security first" in order to move from arms reduction to disarmament; furthermore, political commitments are necessary conditions without which the transition point cannot be crossed. The paper concludes with a policy recommendation outlining how the NPT nuclear-weapons states, and other nuclear weapons states outside the treaty framework, can safely and securely meet their Article IV responsibilities.
Perfecting the Narrative: The Bush Administration’s Construction of the 2003 United States Invasion of Iraq View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Malak El Outa
This study explored the Bush administration’s construction of the 2003 United States invasion of Iraq. Specifically, this study focused on the subtler narratives and tools utilized by the administration within their construction of the invasion in order to illuminate the potential employment of problematic discourses and practices. Using a qualitative framing and critical discourse analysis, twenty public addresses from President George W. Bush and Secretary of State Colin Powell were analyzed to highlight the potential utilization of colonial narratives and practices within the administration’s constructions. As such, Edward Said’s Orientalism, Makua Mutua’s Savages-Victims-Saviors Metaphor, and Achille Mbembe’s Necropolitics were selected as the theoretical tools. The analysis undertaken concluded the presence of colonial narratives and practices within the administration’s construction of the invasion, a utilization that presented itself through three dominant themes: 1) ‘American and Western Supremacy’, 2) ‘The Construction of the Colonial Other’, and 3) ‘Iraq as a Death World’. While limited only to an analysis of the administration, the research conducted highlights the necessity to dissect the hidden narratives and tools utilized by Western actors to justify bouts of violence, due to their ability to reproduce unequal power relations that enable modern imperialism to thrive.
Objective 8 of Sustainable Development and Freedom from the Senian and Foucaultian Perspective View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session M. Rosario Carvajal Muñoz
The paper analyzes objetive 8 of the 2030 Agenda for sustainable development on decent work, conditional on economic growth, as collected from the indicators of the National Institute of Statistics (INE) in Spain. It is an exploratory investigation of the possible consequences of this discourse on negative and positive freedoms. Negative freedom relative to the removal of restrictions on the effective decision making of individuals. The positive refers to the existing internal and external opportunities for personal autonomy. These reflections lead to highlighting the need for an operational change in the conception of economic development, expanding to other dimensions of human development that go beyond the economic. A conception of economic development that expands freedoms would positively affect individual freedoms. Positive freedom is related to Sen´s concept of capability, defined as an aspect of freedom that occurs when there are substantive opportunities for individuals to become and do what they consider important in their lives. The objective is also analyzed from Foucault´s contributions on political rationality, as a form of government that limits freedoms. Lastly, collective capabilities are vindicated, mainly among the most vulnerable, as a necessary preamble to broaden individual capabilities and overcome the limitations of the labor market.
